• sirdorius@programming.dev
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    43
    ·
    8 months ago

    In a functioning society these fucks would have been sued into bankruptcy for suppressing those studies in the 80s. In our society they can continue to make record profits every year

    • moitoi@feddit.de
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      8 months ago

      80s? They knew in the 50s. They might even know before. With these liars, you never know.

    • Rhaedas@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      8 months ago

      Except for one thing. Unless that society is also a lot different than ours, it would still require the product these companies produce to survive. So maybe a much stronger slap of the hand, but it wouldn’t eliminate them.

      • DessertStorms@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        12
        ·
        8 months ago

        We also require food and water and shelter and healthcare to survive, that doesn’t justify their commodification for profit, if anything it’s the best and foremost reason for those resources to be free for all. Just like the need for an energy source doesn’t justify anything the oil companies have done, which includes making sure every alternative to their product nonviable, or at least significantly more expensive to buy (though not to make!) so that people continue to buy their product that they have known for decades is destroying the planet.

        The idea that they can’t be eliminated is one they have planted in your mind, not reality.

      • Zitronensaft@feddit.de
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        8 months ago

        Well keeping it cheap and poorly regulated helps feed into the dependence on it. If it was treated like a precious good only meant for essentials that can’t be replaced by anything else, maybe we wouldn’t have ever built up sprawling suburbs and exurbs that require a car to do every little thing, are searing hot asphalt hellscapes to walk through, and are poorly served by mass transit systems because of the previous issue. Maybe we also wouldn’t have plastic in mothers’ placentas today if we had cracked down early instead of covering it up for the oil producers’ sake.

        Oil is a finite resource, if all the droughts and mayhem from climate change don’t get us first, sooner or later the party will end and we will have to become a non-fossil fuel dependent world again. I doubt we will produce enough vegetable oil to replace it.